


Blood Stained Gold

by itswackkman



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, No Dialogue, POV Draco Malfoy, its just a lot of angst, there is no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 07:24:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itswackkman/pseuds/itswackkman
Summary: Draco falls for someone he shouldn't and pays the price





	Blood Stained Gold

He had known for weeks. For weeks. Yet, he hadn't gone to get help or even tried to help himself. Instead, Draco favored watching from afar, coughing yellow flowers in the empty corridors for the one person he could never have.

 

It got worse the further they were, he learned. They shared potions. In potions, Draco could feel the flowery bile rising up his throat, but the petals never left his mouth. It was only when he was alone, longing for the stolen embrace of the boy who would never be his, that the petals flowed freely.

 

Draco was careful. He made every effort to not cough in class, and when he did, he was always careful to hide the petals in a handkerchief. He would cough petals in his sleep, but he always woke up early to clean up bloody blossoms. Draco was careful, but all it took was a single first year in the corridor watching him cough and catching a glance at the golden leaf through his hand.

 

Rumors spread. Rumors spread faster than Draco could hope to deny them. Yet, he would continue to deny them. He would deny every one of them until is voice would carry no longer.

 

Pansy confronted him about it, but by the time she did, it was too late. His voice had long grown raspy and fragile. He had already quit the quidditch team when the petals took over his lungs and he could no longer breathe as freely as he had before. Perhaps before, he could've gotten the flowers removed, she told him, taking the feeling with them. There had to have been some potion or spell that would reverse this. However, he had waited too late.

 

All his emotions wouldn't have even left had he done something sooner. Only the ones he felt for a certain Harry Potter.

 

Draco wanted to think that had he known earlier, he would have done something, but a small part of him--perhaps a part of him that was larger than he wanted to admit--knew that he would have done it all the same. He would've suffered the same had he thought there was even a slight possibility that the Gryffindor would return his feelings.

 

Draco only got worse. Each breath of stolen air he dared breathe came labored and difficult. His pockets were filled with the ghastly petals at any one moment. It became a struggle to try to hide it in class, so he didn't. The professors watched with pity as death claimed him over and over. They all knew he was far beyond the point of help.

 

He slept every night, unsure of whether he would wake the next morning. It was common for hanahaki patients to die in their sleep. Choking on flowers or simply not being able to breathe. Draco wanted to die in his sleep. He wanted to pass as peacefully as possible. He didn't want to fall over and croak during a lesson or doing homework around everyone in the common room.

 

This was more peaceful than Draco could imagine. This state of knowing death would claim him, or perhaps death already had, but never knowing when. It stripped him of the sense of security he had long grown accustomed to. It forced him to slow down and take each precious moment one breath at a time. At first, the idea of death had scared him; when he first realized what was happening, he had cried himself to sleep. Over the last few months, Draco had grown familiar with the tight feeling embracing his chest.

 

He could've ended this long ago simply by telling Harry of his feelings. That would have been the best solution. He would have solved almost everything. Things would have been complicated had Harry rejected him, their dynamic had always been weird, but Draco wouldn't have had to deal with the constant state of death. Draco would've still kept his feelings for the boy.

 

He didn't want to risk it. He didn't want to risk complicating their already confusing dynamic. There was a problem here, Draco knew this, but the problem was him. It was he who decided to catch feelings and ruin everything. He would have been fine, maybe even content had they continued at each other's throats.

 

Draco was fortunate. His dying wish granted. He died in his sleep that night. Alone. No one had to watch the light fade from his eyes. No one had to listen as the last bit of air left in his body was stolen away to clear the flowers. No one had to hold him as he spoke his final words. No one had dirty their conscious with images of his violent death.

 

Death took him slowly, yet the murder was merciful. He had the blessing of dying in his sleep. His body had grown so accustomed to the tightness wrapping around his chest that it hadn't known it was dying until its final moments, yet it could feel itself tearing from the inside.

 

His body would lay until morning, where he was bound to be found in this cruel game of hide and seek. Draco had wondered, before, who would find him first if he did die in his sleep. He figured it’d be Blaise, had he lived longer, he would’ve found himself to be wrong.

 

The scene was almost poetic. There he lay, pale as ever, surrounded by a sea of gold petals. Blood tainted the edges of each and every petal, splattering the scene with drops of red. Tears stay gathered in his lashes. A single tear track cascaded his face. The only sign of struggle. It almost looked like he was sleeping.

 

His eyes were shielded from the vision that would soon fill the room. His ears dead to the horrors this room would hear in a matter of hours when he was found. The tears, the only reflection of life, would dry by morning, leaving new ones in its track. Yet, the new tears, he would never cry. Never again would he feel such a sign of life on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this was really angsty but i was tired
> 
> yell at me on tumblr @/itspracticallycannon


End file.
